As we reached the bottom half of November, we expected that the winter tea season was over but the phone rang. Yuwen's voice immediately shifted to a higher volume when replying. Spoken Taiwanese at high volume often appears to the listener as if people are arguing ferociously but the frequent courtesy words spoken implied that it was possibly Mr. Chen that was calling. You see, Mr. Chen is 96 years old and entitled to all the respect that elders are due but it now needs to be delivered at a higher volume due to his venerable age. Mr. Chen quickly diverted all our questions about his health as we could sense that he was excited to discuss his new winter production that he had just made. We were surprised that he had such a late crop as Wenshan winter teas were all picked and made in October. He explained that he pruned his bushes late this summer and it took a bit more time to get a decent picking table to crop. After receiving samples of the three consecutive productions made in the second week of Nov., we opted to take all three as they were that good! After sorting the tea at our facility and removing the many tiny tea tree nuts and stems, the finished tea shows an inviting lustrous green colour that livens-up when water is poured. The leaves are even and smallish and deliver a flowing buttery foundation on top of which fresh buttered green bean and pastoral flower aromas linger nicely. This is not a brash “in your face” Wenshan Bao Zhong tea boosted by chemical fertilizers like many producers are proposing now, and that is exactly what makes it such an appealing choice. Mr. Chen does not use synthetic fertilizers in his garden and his leaves deliver the elegance of a well-balanced tea, like it used to be the case in bygone days. With the help of a quick low-temp baking by Yuwen to re-dry the tea and stabilize its aromas, this tea is now available to all as one of our most authentic of this winter 2023's catalogue. For the love of Bao Zhong tea but also for the love of Taiwan, and Mr. Chen, you must experience this tea.